Missing Her
by annebd
Summary: A series of drabbles based on the relationship between Alex and Olivia. We've finally reached Loss. Chapters 3136 are based on that episode. Please R&R.
1. Missing Her: Alex

I was born into wealth, into the lap of luxury. I was told, daily, that I had everything a little girl could, and should, want. I believed it for a while. I believed that the dolls were my friends. I believed that my parents loved me as much as my nannies did. I believed that I didn't need anything more than the life I had, the life of a princess. Until I realized that there was more to life. I was missing something. At eight years old, I didn't know what it was. Now I do. I was missing her.


	2. Missing Her: Olivia

My childhood wasn't much different from that of any other child. At least, not on the outside. On the outside, I was a happy little girl with a perpetual grin on my face. I was the one who could elicit a smile from the crying kindergartener. I had lots of friends with whom I played "Hide and Seek" and "Truth or Dare." But at home was a different story. At home, a smile could not be elicited from the demons the alcohol created. I would hide in my closet, knowing that I was missing something from my twisted double life. Something that would keep me sane. I was missing her. 


	3. The One: Alex

I met her four years ago. The first time I saw her, I felt my stomach fill with butterflies. I knew she disliked me immediately. I knew there was nothing I could do about it. I knew she was the one. I didn't love her instantly. I didn't feel as though my life was finally complete. I felt as though she was that which I could not attain, that which money could not buy. She was the one to make up for the dolls and the nannies and the empty princess dreams. I just had to get her to see it. 


	4. The One: Olivia

The first time I saw her, I was struck by her elegance. She was everything I knew I should aim to be. I hated her. The first time I heard her voice, I thought of Daisy Buchanan. Her voice was full of money. I hated her. I never thought that she was the one who could make my life better. I never thought that she was the one who could kiss the wound and make it stop burning. I didn't know that her presence would keep me sane throughout my world of insanity. At the time, I couldn't see it. 


	5. The Beginning: Alex

I was never really part of the gang. They would invite me out for celebratory drinks after a successful conviction, but I knew they didn't really want me there. Occasionally I would accept, and we'd sit in the back booth of a smoke-filled bar, nursing our drinks in uncomfortable silence. I knew they'd warm up to me eventually, and I to them; it was just a matter of time. But something was always holding her back. The truth was hidden behind the plastic smile that always graced her features. It was a smile to hide a multitude of sins. Or was it tears?


	6. The Beginning: Olivia

We'd invite her to join us simply to be polite. In the beginning, none of us wanted her there, but it seemed rude to exclude her from the celebrations, especially since she was the one who sent the bastards to prison. Most of the time, to our relief, she would decline the offer just as politely as we'd extended it. Once in a while, after a real bitch of a case, she'd say yes. We'd all get raving drunk, and by the end of the night, she seemed that slightest bit more tolerable. Despite all that, she was still an icy bitch. 


	7. The Look: Alex

Today, for the first time, she noticed me. She saw me as more than an ADA, more than a pain in her ass. She saw me as a woman. I'd heard the rumors flying around. A woman like her, still single and working sex crimes? She had to be a dyke. I ignored them as merely gossip, but the idea stuck in my head like a buzzing fly that can't be swatted away. Maybe, just maybe, there might be something between us. She noticed me today, and the look she gave me sent a shiver sliding down my spine. I wanted that feeling again. 


	8. The Look: Olivia

Seeing her walk through the squad room everyday gradually became less and less irritating. Somehow I found myself almost looking forward to her visits. My heart would pound a little harder as I heard the click-click of approaching heels. I would run a hand through my hair, an unconscious effort to fix myself up a little. Why I suddenly began to care, I didn't know. What I did know is that I noticed her today. Something about her made me look up at her and see her differently. It sent a shiver down my spine. I wanted that feeling again. 


	9. The Kiss: Alex

The first kiss was awkward, passionate, shy, innocent, drunken. It happened one night after I lost another case that made my stomach crawl up into my throat. I wanted to go home, drown myself in a bottle and forget the images that floated, uninvited, inside my head. Images of another broken body wrapped in bandages, another broken spirit that no amount of penicillin could heal. She came to my apartment that night, and, together, we sat on my couch and cried. Somewhere in the moment, she reached over and brushed my cheek. Then, the kiss. I wasn't missing her anymore. 


	10. The Kiss: Olivia

I went to see her that night because she was the only one who could understand. The guys tried, but they couldn't imagine what life was like for a woman in our line of work. I could feel the pain of every victim; it ran through my blood. She understood that. I tried to comfort her, and in doing so, myself. Instead, I came on to her, kissed her in a moment of exposed vulnerability. I hadn't meant to, but once I did, I knew there was no turning back. Despite what I had first thought, she was my sanity. 


	11. In Public: Alex

After that night, the tension between us didn't improve. We didn't speak of the kiss; instead, we treated it as though it had never happened. But the fact that something had happened was painfully obvious to those around us. With every accidental brush of each other's hand, reaching for a case file, handing over a search warrant, we would flinch away from one another. The feelings were too strong to ignore, but ignore them we did. In moments when I thought no one was looking, I would steal tiny glances at her to make sure that the one thing suspending me between reality and fantasy was really there. She was. 


	12. In Public: Olivia

I could no longer trust myself around her. I was terrified that if I so much as spoke to her, I would open my mouth and reveal every secret thought in my mind. Her presence made me feel open and exposed, as though she, and everyone else in the room, could see right through me. Every time we brushed against each other, I felt a sense of calm and panic at the same time. Calm for being so near to her, panic for being so near to her in the midst of so many people. I wanted to get her alone. I needed us to be alone. 


	13. Comfort: Alex

Slowly we became closer. We learned to trust each other, learned that we were the only ones who could truly understand each other's pain. I had never realized how much the cases affected her until one night she stood on my doorstep, soaked from a sudden downpour. Her face was wet, though whether from the rain or from her streaming tears was impossible to tell. I opened the door, and she followed as I walked back to my bedroom. She stripped off her wet clothes and slipped under the covers, her arms wrapped around me. I held her silently as she cried herself to sleep. 


	14. Comfort: Olivia

It took a while for us to get back to a normal routine, if one could call anything in our line of work normal. I learned that she could calm me in almost any situation, and before long, I was at her apartment almost as much as I was my own. I would arrive on her doorstep in the middle of the night, and, unquestioningly, she would lead me to bed, hold me until I fell asleep. She knew exactly how to make everything better. She could kiss away the tears and the hurt, like a real live grown up Band-Aid. 


	15. The Wall: Alex

Our first fight. I accused her of lying to me; she accused me of being a nosy bitch. The difference in our backgrounds had finally caught up to us. My family, though incredibly elitist, was a "normal" one: father, mother, children. I could trace my family tree back for thirteen generations. She, on the other hand, couldn't. I didn't understand why she didn't trust me enough to divulge the circumstances of her existence. Given the nature of our occupations, didn't she feel as though I might be a little more understanding than the average person in the world? Apparently not.


	16. The Wall: Olivia

I shouldn't have reacted the way I did, but she had no right. I should have been more honest, but I would have told her eventually. I've never been shy about speaking of my conception. I've been angry, ashamed, but never shy. It always raised a few eyebrows that I could, even at ten years old, speak of it with such frankness. But when she asked, she, who I had let into every secret of my life, it became a different story. It felt as though the revelation would be akin to removing the final brick in the wall between us. With that revelation, everything would be exposed. I wasn't ready. 


	17. Beautiful: Alex

Up until that night, our relationship was relatively innocent. The odd caress, a stolen kiss. Nothing more than child-like infatuation. We slept together, but all we did was sleep. We'd wake up in the pre-dawn hours of the morning to find a tangle of limbs and sheets from which to extricate ourselves. We had a routine, a simple, comfortable routine that kept us from going insane. At what point that turned into something more, I couldn't say. The first time we made love she was so gentle, so beautiful, so careful not to hurt me. I needed more, but I knew that she was so scared of what ran through her blood, that she couldn't be anything more than what she was. 


	18. Beautiful: Olivia

The first time we made love was on a snowy night in the middle of January. We camped out in front of her fireplace, sipping hot cocoa. She was lying on her back, her head resting in my lap. She reached up to kiss me, and somehow we ended up in her bed. It was a perfect night. I never before realized exactly how beautiful she was. Afterwards, we went back to the fire. We lay watching the flames flicker and make shadows dance across the walls. Her blue eyes sparkled from the light, and as I watched her, I saw something flash in them. Love? 


	19. Repercussions: Alex

We began spending more time together-at least as much time as our careers would allow. At the beginning I would try to protest when, at three in the morning, she rolled out of bed to answer the incessant shrill of her cell phone. I quickly realized that my efforts to stop her were futile. Our jobs simply came before all else. They had to. If this...thing between us had ever compromised a case, we would have been lost. So I learned to let her leave my arms and face the horrors of another case, another victim, another night of tears. 


	20. Repercussions: Olivia

I hated having to leave her. She lay in bed, watching me dress, her hair splayed over her shoulders, the lights of the city bathing her skin. If anything in the world could pull me away from my job it was her, pulling the sheet around her naked form, head tilting slightly to the side, whispering, "come back to bed." But we never allowed our relationship to influence our jobs. Beyond the obvious repercussions of potentially ruining a case, there was the added fear of people finding out. For, no matter how open-minded the world claimed to be, it just wasn't ready for a lesbian sex crimes detective and ADA. 


	21. Love: Alex

Someone once asked me if I'd ever been in love. I scoffed at the idea. Love was merely an annoyance, something that got in the way of lives and careers and other things of importance. But was it really? Had I ever really been in love? I didn't know the answer, I didn't have anything to use as a comparison, until I met her. At the beginning I was sure that it wasn't love, just infatuation. But, as days were spent watching her, nights spent wrapped around her, I began to realize that I, Alexandra Cabot, was in love. 


	22. Love: Olivia

My mother sat me down one day after I'd asked, for what seemed the millionth time, why everyone else had a daddy and I didn't. That was when I learned the truth. That was when I learned that my mother didn't love my father, as mommies were supposed to love daddies. My entire world suddenly focused on the fact that my father was unlovable. He was a monster. I learned to pretend I didn't care that he was what he was. He had nothing to do with me. But, as I lay in bed at night, enveloped by the dark, I'd wonder: if he was unlovable, what about his daughter? 


	23. Blame: Alex

Cheryl Avery had cuts all over her face and arms, but all I could see was the blood. I wanted to be alone that night, but she wouldn't let me. She took me away from the hospital, from Cheryl, from what I had done. She tired to comfort me, but I was being selfish. I knew the case had affected her, too, but I could think only of myself. I tired to shut out the world, silence the cries inside my head, screaming that I had messed up. It didn't work. I sat in bed, her body curled up against me, and stared at the ever-glowing lights of the city.  
  



	24. Blame: Olivia

We all had cases that affected us in ways that no one else could understand. Cheryl Avery was hers. She wanted to be alone after we left the hospital, but I couldn't leave her. I knew how hard it had hit her. I took her home, undressed her, tucked her into bed. She didn't say anything; she simply stared out at nothing in particular. I tried to tell her that it wasn't her fault, but she wouldn't believe me. She didn't sleep that night. She sat in bed, her arms wrapped around her legs, gently rocking back and forth.  



	25. Choices: Alex

That day was the first time we broke up. The first of several times we broke up. It seemed as though every time a case came along that we disagreed on, it drove a stake between us. The stress from our jobs caused us to lash out at each other. At least that was what we told ourselves. That was how we justified it. In truth, we were both terrified at where we were going, how much we had grown to depend on each other. Neither of us was ready to be together forever, but we couldn't conceive of being apart. 


	26. Choices: Olivia

I could count on one finger the umber of times I felt about anyone the way I felt about her. And I'd still have a finger left over. We were perfect together, save for the fact that no one could know about us and that we were both too scared to admit our feelings. Instead, we began a tango around the situation. We became experts at skirting the issue. We broke up, made up, bickered, loved. I couldn't imagine my life without her in it, but I was terrified of the life we'd lead together. As a couple. As us. 


	27. Discovery: Alex

We knew that it had to happen eventually. I always assumed that it would be Elliot. He was the only other person I knew she confided in. She told him all of her secrets. Most of her secrets. It seemed only natural that he would figure it out eventually. She thought it would be Munch. He was constantly watching us, analyzing our every interaction. Neither of us ever thought it would be her. And we certainly never imagined that we'd be caught making out like horny teenagers on the couch of my office. But we were caught, and by none other than Elizabeth Donnelly.  



	28. Discovery: Olivia

For once neither of us had anything particularly important to see to. We managed to slip away for lunch, and made it back to her office without arousing suspicion. We were barely inside the door before she slammed me up against it, fumbled with the lock. Before I could register it, my leather jacket was on the floor, we were on the couch, my shirt was half unbuttoned, and a hand rested inside it, gently massaging a nipple. The world suspended for a moment; I was reveling in perfection. Then the moment, and the world, crashed down as Liz Donnelly barged though the door. Everything was over. 


	29. Revelations: Alex

We stayed seated on the couch for what seemed an eternity. Liz had left the room with an awkward, mumbled apology; had left us with our arms wrapped around each other, eyes glued to a closed door. We couldn't speak. Unanswered questions hung in the air between us. What happened next? Did we try to keep the relationship hidden? Should we tell someone, anyone? We didn't have the answers. After a while she got up, murmured something about meeting Elliot. As she reached for the door, I grabbed her hand impulsively, spun her around, kissed her softly. "I love you."


	30. Revelations: Olivia

I knew that eventually we would reach the point of no return: the point at which we decided that it was forever, or that it just wasn't going to work. In my pessimistic, cynical view of love and committment, I'd always assumed it would be the latter. I never thought she would utter those three words minutes after Liz Donnelly had caught us kissing in her office. But she did. My heart jumped, my stomach tingled, my breath caught in my throat. It took me a moment to realize that as terrified as the words as rendered me, I felt the same way. "I love you, too."


	31. Ironic: Alex

The night it happened was supposed to be the night that we moved in together. We had been planning it for weeks. But then it happened, and before I could register what was going on, she was cradling my head in her arms as I lay on the ground, calling my name softly. I didn't recognize the pain shooting through my shoulder at first. All I could think of was the fact that the look of pain on her face had to be more excruciating than anything I had ever experienced. I would have given anything for her not to feel that pain, the pain that I was causing.


	32. Ironic: Olivia

My first instinct was to protect her. Every thought beyond saving her shut down as she dropped to the ground. I cradled her in my arms, desperately trying to keep her awake, reassuring her that she would be fine. She had to be. I couldn't have gone on without her. As I felt the blood from her wound soak first through her clothing and then through mine, I thought about the fact that on any other night, we would be sitting on my couch in roughly the same position: her head in my lap, me gently stroking her hair. The irony was breathtaking.


	33. Unconscious: Alex

They told me that I would have to break off all contact with everyone in my life. I refused instantly. I made my demands; I would have to see her again. They tried to convince me that it was impossible, that it was too dangerous, but I would have it no other way. I could only imagine what she was going through. She had probably turned to Elliot when the doctor informed her that I was dead. I couldn't leave without saying goodbye, without telling her I would never really leave her. Without telling her that I would be back.


	34. Unconscious: Olivia

I clung to Elliot for support as the doctor's words sank in. She was gone. The next two days were the longest of my life. I walked around in a complete daze, stopping occasionally when I found some remnant of her in my apartment; a t-shirt in the bedroom, her perfume on my pillow, her voice circling inside my head. I didn't know what to do. I did the only thing I knew how to do at that point; I threw myself into my work. I knew she would have worried about me, but I couldn't stop, because I knew that the moment I did, realization would have set in.


	35. Letting Go: Alex

I don't know if I asked for Elliot to come for her sake or my own. Perhaps I didn't want her to be alone in the knowledge of my faked death. She needed someone to talk to, and Elliot was perfect for it. On the other hand, perhaps I did it to prevent myself from doing the one thing I wanted to do. I wanted to throw my arms around her, tell her that I loved her, tell her that I could never be without her. And ask her to come with me. I knew I couldn't do that, because I knew she wouldn't have been able to say no.


	36. Letting Go: Olivia

When I saw her step out of the van, her arm bundled up in the sling, her face paler than I'd ever seen it, I thought that she looked beautiful. I wanted to run over to her, to grab her and not let go. I wanted to kiss her forever. But I couldn't with the agents there. Not with Elliot standing at my side. Not with the knowledge that she was leaving me. Leaving everything she had ever known behind. I wanted to tell her to stay, to promise her that I would protect her. But it wasn't true. I hadn't been able to protect her the first time. I knew that I had to let her go, but it broke my heart to do it.


End file.
